Border follies

Red tape, green clearances and excessive caution have seriously hampered the development of infrastructure along the LAC. The strategic roads are the worst hit.

It was a cold wintry morning in 2007 when A K Antony, then just one year into his tenure as defence minister, stepped up to a border post at Nathu La in east Sikkim to look across. Jolted by what he saw, he candidly described it as "an eye-opener'' .

Antony realised that China had highways and metal roads leading right up to their border posts to bolster rapid mobility of its People's Liberation Army (PLA) along most stretches of the unresolved 4,057-km Line of Actual Control (LAC). In contrast, Indian soldiers often had to trek for miles to reach their border positions, which would be a logistical nightmare in times of conflicts.

But almost six years down the line, the story remains largely unchanged. Consider the grim reality: just 17 of the 73 "strategic'' roads — which add up to 3,808-km — identified for construction along the LAC have been fully completed till now. This when the 73 all-weather roads, with more east-west lateral links as well as better access routes to strategic peaks and valleys, were to be completed by 2012.

Similar slow progress dogs the 413 other roads identified for construction under the "general staff long-term perspective plan'' for borders with China, Pakistan and Myanmar. The Army's demand for 14 strategic railway lines along the western and eastern fronts, too, is still hanging fire. The government , however, says "work on a majority of all these roads is underway'' .

For over four decades after the 1962 war, the security establishment kept a firm lid on the development of any infrastructure along the LAC in the fear that it would actually help PLA make swift inroads into India during a conflict. The roads in some stretches simply stopped dead 60 to 80 km from the LAC.

This ultra-defensive mindset was junked only seven to eight years ago. By then, China had systematically strengthened its military infrastructure and capabilities in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), which now includes at least five fully-operational airbases (Gongar, Pangta , Linchi, Hoping and Gar), an extensive rail network and over 58,000-km of roads.

As if the stark asymmetry in military capabilities was not enough, China also has the border infrastructure in place to more than double its advantage. Beijing, for instance, can swiftly move over 30 divisions (each with over 15,000 soldiers) to the LAC to outnumber Indian forces by at least 3:1. "China can throw around 15 fighter squadrons against us through the Tibet airfields alone. It goes up to 21 squadrons if they also use some bases just north of Tibet,'' says a senior officer. Ominously, China has taken to holding regular air and land combat exercises in the high-altitude Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to flex its military muscles.

It was in early-2006 that the UPA-I government finally gave the go-ahead for the creation of infrastructure in all the three sectors — western (Ladakh), middle (Uttarakhand , Himachal) and eastern (Sikkim , Arunachal) — along the LAC.

But this incremental construction of forward posts, bunkers and roads as well as reactivation of old advanced landing grounds (ALGs) in Ladakh and Arunachal, coupled with "aggressive'' patrolling by Indian soldiers, has irked China no end.

Even the trigger for the ongoing military standoff in the Depsang Bulge area of eastern Ladakh, with PLA soldiers pitching their tents 19 km inside Indian territory, can be traced to India's shoring up of defences in the Daulat Beg Oldi (DBO) and Nyoma sectors in the region.

But India is still a long way from countering China's strategic moves. Many border infrastructure development projects are stuck for various reasons — environmental clearances, bureaucratic red-tape , hard rock stretches, limited working seasons in high-altitude areas and inadequate air efforts to mobilise resources.

A worried Army, in fact, even proposed that infrastructure build-up within 50 km of the LAC, as also the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan, should be exempted from requisite environmental and other clearances. "But to no avail. Ecological concerns are important but national security needs cannot be simply brushed aside,'' says a top officer.

Just some months ago, asked if he was satisfied with infrastructure development along the "northern borders'' facing China, Army chief General Bikram Singh said, "Several projects are underway... But yeh dil maange more (the heart wants more).''

Progress on the ongoing upgrade of airbases, ALGs and helipads, backed by progressive basing Sukhoi-30 MKI fighters, helicopters, spy drones and missile squadrons in the North-East , is only slightly better.

Since 2008, IAF has re-activated ALGs like Nyoma, DBO and Fukche in eastern Ladakh. There is also a Rs 3,500 crore plan to upgrade the Nyoma ALG into "a fullfledged airbase'' , with a 12,000-feet runway capable of handling all kinds of aircraft, which Air Chief Marshal N A K Browne says will ensure "both defensive and offensive options'' in the sector.

The Vijayanagar ALG, situated at the tri-junction of India, China and Myanmar in the Changlang district of Arunachal, has been activated but the work on other eastern sector ALGs like Pasighat, Mechuka, Walong, Tuting and Ziro has been tardy.

The Army, on its part, has a Rs 26,155-crore "capability development'' plan along the "northern borders'' but it will be completed only by 2020-2021 . Ongoing infrastructure development in the Eastern Army Command, at a cost of Rs 9,243 crore, in turn, is slated for completion by 2016-2017 .

But the elephant will have to become more fleet-footed if it ever wants to catch up with the Red Dragon.